Perspective: The Russia connectionRussia Positioning Itself in Libya to Unleash Migrant Crisis into Europe

Published 11 November 2019

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested to the West last month that the widening chaos in Libya after almost a decade of war should have been obvious: “A flow of migrants went through Libya to Europe,” he said in an interview, recalling the displacement of refugees that has reached crisis levels in recent years. “They have what they were warned about.” This week, the New York Times documented the deployment into Libya of Russian mercenaries. “The Russian leader’s warning about Libya, many analysts believe, reflects an ambition to intervene in the conflict at least in part to control refugee flows into Europe, indicating a broad understanding of the disruptive power that the movement of immigrants has had on the Western world,” Paul Shinkman writes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested to the West last month that the widening chaos in Libya after almost a decade of war should have been obvious: “A flow of migrants went through Libya to Europe,” he said in an interview, recalling the displacement of refugees that has reached crisis levels in recent years. “They have what they were warned about.”

Paul D. Shinkman writes in US News that this week, the New York Times documented the deployment into Libya of Russian mercenaries. While Moscow denies its involvement, the situation mirrors tactics it has successfully employed in Syria and Ukraine to gain influence in chaotic war zones by dispatching private forces Putin can disavow until the point of victory.

Shinkman adds:

The Russian leader’s warning about Libya, many analysts believe, reflects an ambition to intervene in the conflict at least in part to control refugee flows into Europe, indicating a broad understanding of the disruptive power that the movement of immigrants has had on the Western world.

Russia’s efforts to manipulate refugee flows is aimed at destabilizing and politically weakening the European Union,” says Agnia Grigas, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Libya’s proximity to Europe just across the Mediterranean is likely to unleash another refugee catastrophe.”

The possibility of another mass migration is feared in Europe, after popular protests that swept across the Arab world beginning in 2011 sparked the greatest migrant wave since World War II. More than 1 million migrants fled, generating political, social and cultural upheaval in countries from Hungary and Austria to Germany and northwestern Europe over how – and whether – to integrate them. The crisis strained the NATO alliance and provoked domestic distrust in governments across the continent. Demonstrations in some places turned violent, right-wing nationalist movements spread, and the debate over refugees is thought to be at least partially responsible for the decision by the United Kingdom to divorce itself from the European Union.

Now Putin’s government seems to believe it can continue to exploit such vulnerabilities from a new direction.

Libya is “a point of leverage that Moscow could use in its overall effort to break the EU and NATO, and compel cooperation or acquiescence on areas that are higher priority to the Kremlin: Eastern Europe,” Emily Estelle, research manager with the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, told Shinkman.